Shadowside's most recent album Inner MonsterOut was released worldwide not too long ago, and serves as a prime example of modern metal that combines melody and heaviness. We had a chat with the band's vocalist Dani Nolden who gives us an insider's view into the making of the album and also discusses the power of the groove and the importance of melody, among other things. Fans of modern groovy power metal, read on!

Hi Dani,thanks for wanting to do this interview.

It'sa pleasure, thanks for having me!

Inner Monster Out has been out for almost a year now. How has itbeen received?

Actually it's been out for about 6 months in Brazil but it's a brand new albumworldwide. We felt it would be a good way to test the waters so to speak. Itwas kinda our way to show people all over the world that it wasn't just us whothought the album was great (laughs). Fans in Brazil can be extremely demandingwhen it comes to a Brazilian band, they are picky when it comes to what bandsthey will support as the 'country's representative', which I think is reallycool since it always pushes us to do better and better and surprise them. So Iwas really glad to see the album is getting a lot of positive feedback, in ourcountry and abroad as well. Japanese magazine Burrn! gave it an excellentreview, websites have been saying great things about the album and fans seem toagree with us and share our opinion that this is undoubtedly our best materialto date.

How do youguys feel about the album?

Weare all very proud of the album and it couldn't be any different because wereally worked on it as a band, we were interested in pleasing ourselves andourselves only. Success comes naturally when you do something you're reallyinto, you know? So we focused on making music we love, something we would wantto hear on the radio and something we would honestly want to buy if it had beendone by another band. The four of us have really distinct influences... to thepoint of one hating what the other likes. But instead of arguing about musicaldifferences, we embraced them. We would try anything, even if taken out ofcontext, it would be something we would usually not listen to. When mixed witheverything else, we found out it actually sounded very interesting. In the end,we all feel we created something of our own, with an identity, a mix ofdifferent personalities that work together like a perfect puzzle.

How wouldyou describe the style of music that you play on the album?

Metal! (laughs) Whenever I try to come up with a subgenre for it, I can't everseem to find the right one. We're Power Metal influenced and Thrash Metalinfluenced, we also have a bit of old-school and a bit of modern so it's hardto label it, perhaps people listening to it will be able to label it bettersince they're not so immersed in the music like we are. But subgenres aside,it's very heavy, angry and intense Metal music, with catchy choruses, a littlebit of the extreme metal with some of the melodic metal. We are in between bothworlds and that's why I'm so happy with the music we're creating. I love theenergy of extreme metal but I miss the melodies when I listen to it and that'swhat we aimed for on Inner Monster Out. Energy, noise and music comingtogether.

Can youexplain the idea behind the cover artwork?

It'sabout the main topic I wrote about on the lyrics: the human mind. We are allfull of surprises, nuances, we are all a little bit crazy in a way and that'sexactly what makes us 'normal'. The lyrics go a lot into fears, dreams,perversions, personality disorders, escapism, duality. There are lots of facetsof a person's mind and that's what the cover is about. The Inner Monster Out issomeone's true self being revealed. It's a journey through a person's mind. Theman inside the head is yourself taking a deep look into what you have in yourhead and all those different faces inside are the different, unique sides ofthe self.

Whileprimarily a metal album to my ears, there are a lot of more rock-orientedmoments on the album. Is this something you guys consciously take into accountin the songwriting process?

Notconsciously but it's definitely there, I agree with you. It happens probablybecause we don't limit ourselves when it comes to the creative process, wedon't care what it is, if it sounds good, we keep it. It isn't much of a riskfor us to do that because it's not like suddenly we'll start liking technomusic or rap and experimenting with stuff like that (laughs). But we definitelyallow into our music everything we like and that isn't necessarily Metal. HardRock is the one thing we all can agree on in the band (laughs). Even though wecan't agree on which band is our favorite Hard Rock band, we all love thegenre. We all grew up listening to it, some of us to Queensrÿche, some of us toSkid Row like myself, Raphael and I also like Foo Fighters a lot. If you listento our tour bus iPod, you'll think we are absolutely crazy because it will gofrom Yes to Slayer (laughs). So for sure, we are a Rock influenced Metal band.

I've readin a review that Inner Monster Out represents a change in style compared to Theatre of Shadows and Dare to Dream. Do you agree with thisstatement, and, if yes, why and how is InnerMonster Out different from the two previous albums?

Iagree, even though we have never changed what people first liked aboutShadowside, which are the melodies, the energy and those Rock influences. Wekept that, not only to make sure we wouldn't forget about our roots but alsobecause that's what we really wanted to keep. Everything else was kinda in theperfection process. I feel that on Theatre of Shadows, we had very littlepersonality because we were a very young band. Our average age at that time was17 so back then, we were afraid to do something that was too different from thebands we listened to. Sometimes we'd come up with something different but sincewe had no references for it, we would automatically think it wasn't good. OnDare to Dream, we noticed that flaw and went the opposite way - we wanted tomake sure we sounded nothing like the bands we listened to. On Inner MonsterOut, we found the balance. We're not worried about what other bands are doingor aren't doing anymore and that was very relieving. We are finally free asartists, we are more mature now so we did exactly what we were looking forsince day one. I feel Inner Monster Out is a grown up album and a bit morecurrent sounding.

The riffson Inner Monster Out strike me asbeing heavier and groovier than on the previous albums. Has the groove andheaviness enriched the Shadowside sound in general?

Beinga fan of groove and heaviness, I would say absolutely! That's something thatwas fighting to get out on our previous albums (laughs). Songs like 'Life Denied'from the Dare to Dream album are a clear example of that and we wanted to takeit one step further this time. I think it added something special to the music.We like our music straight to the point, hitting you right in the gut but ithas to be fun to play as well.

A tracklike 'In the Name of Love', for instance, features some pretty heavy riffage,but is at the same time also very melodic. Did you deliberately aim for thisequilibrium between heaviness and melody?

Yeah,always! We love it heavy and to me personally, there can never be such thing as "too heavy". If it doesn't sound massive and heavy to the point to get youheadbanging, it's not heavy enough yet. And the way we balance that so itdoesn't get boring is with the melodies. Too melodic without the punch...that's definitely not what we want. We'll make it beautiful and angry at thesame time without going for "beauty and the beast" type of music. It's also areally nice mixture... to have something very musical going on with a brutalinstrumental behind it like on 'In the Name of Love' as you just said and 'MyDisrupted Reality', 'I'm Your Mind' and 'Waste of Life' being good examples of thatas well.

The vocalmelody of the chorus in 'Gag Order' is pretty awesome. How on Earth did youguys come up with that?

Thanks! I honestly have no idea (laughs). I just remember being home, staringat the sky at about 2, 3am which is my usual songwriting time. Raphael had thesong written but he had no melodies for it. Actually, he had melodies but herefused to show them to me, because they had been written by a friend of his soinstead he told me he'd rather hear what I would come up with first. He saidwhat I did was a shock because it was completely different than what his friendhad but that he really liked it so we kept it. I started playing with wordslike the "storm calls me back home" because that's what I always feel when I'mon tour and it's raining... rain reminds me of home because it rains a lothere, especially in January when it rains pretty much every single day... andwith that sentence done, I just started singing, improvising some melodies,like a guitarist would improvise a solo and that's how those melodies 'happened'. Once I sang them, they got stuck in my head so it stayed. It wassupposed to be a lot more complex with some low counter-singing and all but thenwhen we heard it in the studio, we just thought less was more and adding crapto it would ruin the whole thing so we kept the simple version. 'Gag Order' wasin fact the first song we ever presented to our fans from the Inner Monster Outalbum. We played it live for the first time in Italy, in 2010, as a way to seehow people would react to the direction we wanted to take with the album. Itold them to scream if they loved it and to be quiet if they thought it wasshit. Everybody screamed so we took it as the crowd's approval and moved on(laughs).

Thechoruses in general are very catchy on InnerMonster Out. What's the secret behind writing good and catchy choruses?

Forme, it's usually writing the chorus first. I write all my songs backwards(laughs). Since the chorus is, to me, the most important part of the song, Iwrite it first so I don't limit it. I don't like writing a chorus around a songbecause I feel that in that situation, I'm limited to what fits that particularsong so I prefer to write a song for the chorus instead. Of course that's not arule and it can be done differently, like I just mentioned with 'Gag Order',usually when the guys ask me to write melodies for a song or I'm finishing asong that was half done, the order has to be different and then I just keepplaying around until I'm happy with what I hear. However, it's crucial that youtrust your band and you hear their opinions. That's essential for writing notonly great choruses but great songs. There were lots of songs, melodies,arrangements and riffs that we all did together. The guys changed and wrotemelodies, we all wrote guitar riffs so it wasn't just one of us saying "here isthe song, play it as I wrote". When we tell each other something isn't good, wedo it with the best intentions and we all know it so we don't feel personallyattacked, we don't have egos when it comes to songwriting. That helps a lotwhen you're creating the perfect chorus.

What wasthe writing process for Inner Monster Outlike, and did it differ from the writing process of the previous two albums?

Itwas completely different, we had never worked like that before. Raphael and Icame up with half the ideas each; however, none of the songs you hear on InnerMonster Out sound exactly like our demos. We really wrote everything as a bandthis time, completely stripped of egos, with no intentions of personal glory, that'sone of the reasons why we credited all the songs on the album to "Shadowside".We'd bring our demos to the studio and then we'd reconstruct them together. Wechanged structures, riffs, melodies, added and removed parts. And we keptworking on them until the four of us were totally happy. "Okay" wasn't enough. "Majority wins" wasn't acceptable. It was either unanimity or we'd keepchanging it. And we wanted that since the beginning. Knowing it would be likethat, and succeeding in making it like that made the whole process extremelyfun, easy and stress-free. No fights. Just a lot of fun and real fulfillmentas artists. It took a lot off everyone's shoulders because we knew nothing wasentirely one's responsibility. No one had to create on their own and no onewould have to take the blame alone if it had failed. We were in it together andnow we get to share as a group the success of what we did together. It didn'thappen that way in the past. It used to be two people in charge of songwritingand it comes to a point that you just start copying yourself. I feel thatwriting as band helped us inspire each other and make us all think in differentways. 'Waste of Life', for instance... that song was written in 15 minutes andit's probably the band's favorite. I had a chorus and bridge, but had no ideawhat to do with them. Raphael had some riffs he had no idea what to do withthem. So we changed both slightly so they'd fit together. Then Fabio had saidhe always wanted a song that started off right with vocals so we did it, thenadded some riffs and solos and voila... a song done effortlessly. I don't seemyself working differently than this in the future, at least not in Shadowside.

There'salso a cover version of 'The Ace of Spades' on the album. Why did you choose tocover this particular song?

Firstof all, because we are all Motörhead fans. Who isn't? (laughs) So it waspartially an homage to Lemmy and Motörhead. Secondly, it was Fabio's idea thatit would be cool to hear a female singing a song like that. The idea was neverto make it better than the original, because that would be impossible, theoriginal is already perfect. We just wanted to have fun making our version andhearing what it would be like if that song had been written for us. As always,the choice was entirely based on how much fun we'd have recording it. Wethought of making a Metal version of Lily Allen's 'Fuck you', but that wouldhave been funny, not fun. So we went with 'Ace of Spades' instead.

Are thereany specific bands that served as major sources of inspiration for Shadowsidewhen you wrote the music for InnerMonster Out?

Notreally, I think everything we all listen to or grew up listening to served andwill always serve as a source of inspiration for us. It's hard to find a fewspecific bands to draw inspiration from for Shadowside because none of us havethe same favorite bands so we would never reach an agreement (laughs). Fabio'sfavorite bands are, as bizarre as it may sound, Tears for Fears and Slayer,Raphael's is Pantera, mine... mine changes with the weather (laughs). I canlisten to Queen, Deep Purple and Rammstein on the same day. While we weren'treally trying to sound like our favorite bands, obviously our writing, playingand singing has been influenced by what we listen to but it's nothing we doconsciously.

How aboutyou as a vocalist? Are there any singers that you would highlight as havinginfluenced your singing style?

Dani:Mostly male singers, usually high pitched but with attitude like SebastianBach, Steven Tyler, Rob Halford, Paul Stanley. I used to sing along to Queenwhen I was 8 trying to mimic Freddy Mercury's singing. I tend to like unusualvoices, those you recognize instantly.

Speaking ofyour singing style, I really like your singing in general, but your vocals arevery powerful on Inner Monster Out. Would you say that you have grown as asinger since Theatre of Shadows?

There's no doubt about it... I never aim to be the best singer in the worldbecause I don't believe there is such a thing as the ultimate best. There'salways the best in one's opinion. The best singer in the world for me may beSteven Tyler but for another person it will be Geoff Tate, for someone else itwill be Bruce Dickinson and in the end it comes down to personal taste. Sothat's something I definitely don't have as a goal. I also don't believe incompeting in music. But against myself, I am extremely competitive. I don'tever want to stay in one place and never move forward so I'm always working onmy personal skills, first because I'd hate to limit a song because of alimitation as a singer, second because I always think there's room forimprovement, in anybody. So whenever we are working on new material, I doeverything I can to perform what I did before better and to add new things Iwasn't able to perform before. I don't want to give just what the fans expect,you know? If you don't give them something new, a positive shock, then you stopgrowing. They'll get 'used' to you and as impressed as they were with you before,that feeling will go away and you'll become boring. So I keep practicing,studying, I'll always push my limits, even if it's something I don't plan onusing a song... you never know, someday it might be useful!

Compared tomany other female vocalist in the metal world, you have a very dark andpowerful voice. How do people in general react to your singing?

There's a funny story about people's reactions... a few years ago, we were on awebsite where people could blindly review a band. They didn't know the bandname nor could see a band photo. However they could vote on several categorieswhen they were listening to it... like you could pick that song had the bestmale or female vocalist, best guitarist, etc. I ended up being voted 'best malevocalist' (laughs). They were shocked at the moment they found out I was afemale, many came to apologize (laughs). That never bothered me though, Ithought it was extremely funny to 'trick' people like that. Once we were alsoaccused by a fan that wehad gottencommercial, because we had replaced the 'former male singer' for a female justto cash in on the woman image. Turns out he had only listened to the songs andnever saw a photo so he had no idea I have been the band's vocalist since thefirst rehearsal (laughs). Many don't believe it's a female singing at first.When people get to know us by going to a show with a friend or when we supportanother band, they immediately assume they'll hear an angel-like voice and arevery surprised when they find out it's nothing like that. It really entertainsme. I love the idea of the play between a very feminine image with an almostmasculine voice when singing. It's like the guys that sound like women, justthe opposite (laughs).

Are thereany songs on Inner Monster Out thatyou would highlight as being especially important to you?

Thatwould probably be 'Angel with Horns' as it's the song I feel best represents thealbum. It has everything we've done on Inner Monster Out: the heaviness, themelodies, a touch of fun, a lot of energy, something for people to bang theirheads to and also sing. It makes it clear that we're the type of band thatwants to have a great time with the crowd on stage and writes songs meant to beplayed live.

What areyour favorite tracks of the Shadowside-EPand Dare to Dream and Theatre of Shadows respectively?

Dani: TheEP is just a demo so there's only one song on that CD that isn't on Theatre ofShadows, which is the song 'Shadowside', one that I absolutely hate so I hopeit's forever forgotten (laughs). So my favorites would be 'In the Night' on Dareto Dream and 'Highlight' on Theatre of Shadows. It's been forever since I lastheard Theatre of Shadows though... I might find out I actually like other songsbetter once I hear it again.

What doesthe future have in store for your fans? Have you lined any great gigs up forthe summer or are your working on new material?

Weare definitely going to tour, tour, tour and tour some more in the near future!We always have new material to work on but I feel it's way too early now sincethe album is about to be released in Europe. We'll play a lot in Brazil andthen hope to hit the road internationally. We are looking forward to go back toall the countries we've been before and maybe add some to that list as well.

Thank youvery much for doing this interview. Do you have any message for theMMA-readers?

Ihope you all enjoy the Inner Monster Out and go crazy to it, play it loud,maybe we'll meet soon at a show where you are. It's been a little over a yearsince we last toured and I already miss it like crazy. Cheers!

Best ofluck in the future.

Thankyou!

Edited by Time Signature - 06 May 2014 at 12:45pm]]>
Wed, 02 May 2012 13:53:43 +0000http://www.MetalMusicArchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3441&PID=68151&title=shadowside-interview-may-2012#68151